


Feeling Down, I'll be Around

by Sedaris



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Disability, Love, M/M, Multiple Sclerosis, Passion, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:15:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sedaris/pseuds/Sedaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as technologically and scientifically advanced as their society had become, the event of giant rampaging monsters meant that shit was decidedly not good on the supplies front — everything, even necessities, became scarce and rationed. Medicine was no exception. </p><p>Newton Geiszler is in love, and he does what he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feeling Down, I'll be Around

For as technologically and scientifically advanced as their society had become, the event of giant rampaging monsters meant that shit was decidedly not good on the supplies front — everything, even necessities, became scarce and rationed. Medicine was no exception. 

Hermann Gottlieb had multiple sclerosis, and while he'd prided himself his whole life on his ability to rise and overcome with his chin held high and a textbook tucked under his arm, his under-managed condition was starting to debilitate his ability to work.

Newt first noticed on one otherwise uneventful night in October, just a few short years into the program. Apart from the Jaeger pilots, virtually no one in the Shatterdome had gotten a full night's sleep in a very long time. Months, probably, if Newt really thought about it, though why the hell would he depress himself with that information?

Deciding that he really did need that eighth cup of coffee, he turned to ask Hermann if he wanted one, and froze at the sight in front of him. Hermann was sleeping, head nestled in folded arms that rested wearily on his desk. This was the first time in a while that Newt had seen him looking anything other than stiff and angry and harsh, and his throat dried up because suddenly there he was, there was the one person that Newt had ever truly considered his equal, if only privately and with a decent measure of bitterness. 

Newt knew what people thought, that Hermann was boring and dry and dull, and while Newt usually pretended like he thought the same, in this moment, he couldn't avoid the truth. Through countless arguments, screaming matches, throbbing veins, incidents of chalk-throwing, aggressive bouts of silent treatments, red faces, and swinging canes, Newt had learned that Hermann was fire. In the cold silence of the lab, with only the gentle whirring and beeping of his scanners to score his thoughts, Newt had to admit that while he himself was manic, Hermann was wild, Hermann was passionate, Hermann was a hurricane. Right now, the hurricane was drooped on a desk, stiller than he'd ever been in all the years that Newt had known him, looking more like a painting than a living genius. In that moment, Newt knew two things: one, Hermann was part of the 80% of MS patients who displayed fatigue as a symptom, and two, he was in love with him. 

Newt sighed and ground the heel of his hand into his tired eye, wishing that a Kaiju would burst through the wall and swallow him up right then and there.

Hermann woke up the next morning with his bulky parka draped over his shoulders, and Newt was, for once, no where in sight.

\---------

The worst day of Newt's life came two years after that, when 7AM came and went and Hermann had yet to hobble into the lab. He was starting to worry and began to seriously consider calling his room when he heard the distinct sound of something squeaky rolling across linoleum in the hallway. Somehow, Newt knew exactly what it was before he saw it. His stomach dropped as the creaking grew closer, and then there Hermann was in the doorway, sitting straight-backed in a wheelchair. His eyes bore into Newt's, that fire that he loved intense with shame, silently asking — no, demanding — that Newt say nothing about it.

Newt went home at the end of that day and made some calls. By morning, he had sold nineteen of his patents and had left an envelope containing a hand-written note in Marshal Pentecost's mailbox, telling him that he was willing to pay whatever price was necessary for their under-funded medical bay to get a shipment of Hermann's medication. Stuffed awkwardly next to the note was several thousand dollars in cash.

A few days later, Hermann was back to the cane, the noticeable bulge of a pill bottle protruding from his pocket, and Newt's heart swelled at the sight. 

\-----------

"Newton!" Hermann gasped from his desk, four months after Newt's initial payment. Newt's head snapped up from his specimen. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Come look at this!" He gestured wildly to his computer screen.

Newt snapped off his gloves and jogged over, leaning over Hermann's shoulder and squinting at the web page. 

"One of my old colleagues sent this to me — this is your research! This person is profiting off of your work!" Newt's hand flew to the back of his neck, and his eyes shifted down to his shoes. Hermann eyed him suspiciously. "What?" 

"It's — it's not mine, anymore. I mean, it is, but. I sold that guy my patent."

" _What?_ "

Newt turned around, stepping away from the desk. "I needed money."

He could feel Hermann's glare and winced. "Whatever for? What in God's name could be so bloody valuable now, at the end of the world, that you'd sign away the rights to your own discoveries? Have you no integrity?"

Newt pivoted back around to face him, but would not directly look at him, eyes fixed solely of the dark, shiny lines of the lab floor. Slowly, Hermann's own eyes drifted over to the small orange pill bottle that rested casually at the corner of his desk.

"Newton." His voice was low and soft, with a broken hint of awe.  He cleared his throat. "How many?" 

Newt shook his head. "Don't."

"Then how long?" 

He hesitated, fingering the hem of his button-down. "Since you started getting the medicine again," he muttered quietly.

Hermann's dumbstruck stare made Newt's face heat up, and a vibe passed between them, a sudden understanding that sobered Hermann up a bit, his hanging jaw clattering shut, spine straightening slightly.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"I...I won't ever be able to pay you back, Newton."

"That wasn't the point."

"No. I suppose it wasn't." Their eyes met, Hermann's holding the barest hint of fear. "But, regardless, I wish to tell you that I am very grateful. Eternally so. And that I...I think that you did this because you love me."

"I do." Newt hadn't really meant to say it, but Hermann's assertion caught him off guard.  Hermann sprang — well, as much as someone like him could spring — out of his seat, wrapping his arms around Newt's waist and kissing him. Newt's own arms hooked around the back of Hermann's neck, and now he was wrapped up in his hurricane, his whole body was on fire, his nerves more wrecked than the destruction that had been left in Onibaba's wake.   

Hermann Gottlieb was sick, and Newton Geiszler was in love. And it was okay.


End file.
